


This Moment and Nothing More

by CrumblingAsh



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate History, Alternate Universe - War, Ambiguous/Open Ending, M/M, Mild Gore, Nightmares, Sad Bruce, Sad Tony, Science Bros Secret Santa 2016, Soldier Bruce
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-13 09:55:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9118573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrumblingAsh/pseuds/CrumblingAsh
Summary: Tony jerks back around, desperate to be back in the rickety old bed, safe in Bruce’s tiny apartment. But behind Bruce, there are still running soldiers, beneath them there’s still the bite of ruined dirt. He can’t even hear the sounds of their own breathing.Bruce kisses his fingers again, a small, reassuring smile on his face. “I’m fine, sweetheart.”





	1. Tony

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seekingsquake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekingsquake/gifts).



* * *

 

 

War is …

War is money. Weapons. The creation of guns, gases, grenades and bombs – anything that can smite a life and turn a profit. War is presenting those weapons to a salivating government with a slick salesman smile and seductive, pretty words. _Better. Stronger. Efficient. Cheaper._

A few of which are lies.

War is the 360 spin of Christmas, where you are both Santa Claus and child. Where people revere you like you’re Christ returned and watch you like you’re God come visible, performing impossible miracles and striking down incomprehensible evil. Kings give you gifts of gold and the common people lay palms at your feet to ease the wear of your travels.

War is life, the only river of water from which you can drink. You spend your nights on your knees praying to whatever god or man will have you that it will last for as long as it can.

Victory is blasphemy, and you will gladly break the jaw of any who whisper the word.

 

* * *

 

 

_There are lines set in the skin of Bruce’s face, darkened with shadows and an exhausted pain no ointment can soothe._

_Tony’s timid on displaying physical affection – every movement he ever makes feels like he’s stepping off the ledge of the Empire State Building with a blindfold on – but here, straddling Bruce’s hips in the shelter of this bed, it’s easier. He only shakes a little as his fingers brush gently across the bags beneath Bruce’s eyes, skimming down the creases that slant from them to the edges of his mouth and back up again. They’re too deep, too prominent, like it’s no longer a threat that they’ll become permanent, but a promise already in the making of becoming fact._

_“You’re not getting enough sleep,” he whispers. It’s not an accusation – the fatigue swallowing the other man is too thick to have been born intentionally or through neglect. He’s not angry that Bruce is so tired that it’s eating him, leaving him heavy and lethargic and almost inside of himself, but he regrets it. Hates whatever it is that’s lead him here. “I’m sorry.”_

_He recognizes the concern that flickers in Bruce’s eyes at the words – they’ve had more than a few discussions about his habit of apologizing ‘too much’, and that expression is no stranger. But before he can open his mouth to try and take back the words, Bruce’s hand gently catches Tony’s left one, pulling it away from his face and down to his lips. Where Tony is shy on affection, Bruce has no such hesitation with it in the safety of this bed, and the light press of the kiss to his fingers makes whatever tension he has melt away._

_“Tony.” Bruce’s breath is warm against his skin. “What are you doing here?”_

_A spatter of something sharp and gritty smacks against the side of his face._

_Tony turns his head, and they’re no longer on the bed. They’re not inside at all._

_Not two feet away, a man writhes on the ground, face twisted in deformed agony – below his knees, both of his legs are gone, nothing left but useless splintered bone and chunks of flesh left to rot. His fingers are digging into the dirt he lays on – the same that had hit Tony’s face – moving with a sickening desperation as if he’s looking for something to save him. Or maybe just something to ground him . His mouth is wide open – he’s obviously screaming, but Tony can’t hear his pain._

_Around them, there are soldiers, most running forward with their guns against their shoulders and terrified expressions on their young faces, some turning back with waving arms and lips moving in shouted orders that have no noise. Something explodes off to the side, and he watches in stunned horror as more men go down like the one beside him and don’t get back up, twisting in approaching death or already dead. They’re so obviously screaming, too._

_He can’t hear any of it. Everything is completely, nonexistently silent. He can’t hear anything at all._

_“Tony.”_

_Except Bruce._

_Tony jerks back around, desperate to be back in the rickety old bed, safe in Bruce’s tiny apartment. But behind Bruce, there are still running soldiers, beneath them there’s still the bite of ruined dirt. He can’t even hear the sounds of their own breathing._

_Bruce kisses his fingers again, a small, reassuring smile on his face. “I’m fine, sweetheart.”_

_And then a circle, big and dark and red, sprouts in the center of Bruce’s chest, growing larger without respect to life or time, spreading out as if neither matter._

_Blood spills brightly from the corner slit of Bruce’s lips, hot on Tony’s skin as he continues to smile._

_“I’m fine.”_

“Bruce!”

Tony’s heart is hammering as he frantically reaches out, but his fingers snatch at nothing but cold, empty air.

His eyes snap open.

He’s in bed. Not Bruce’s unstable old one, but his own, with its thick mattress and heavy blankets and feather-filled pillows that are currently all on the floor. He’s surrounded by the walls of his bedroom, the smells of his life, the faint sounds of the house staff moving about the mansion, preparing for the new day. There’s the faintest hint of early morning sunlight glowing through his curtains.

There are no soldiers. No bodies. No men struggling against the confines of their physical selves as they die in the dirt.

There’s no Bruce. Because Bruce isn’t here. Bruce is off fighting in the damn war Tony is making weapons for, and has been for two fucking months.

Tony chokes on some hybrid gasp-sob thing, and the machine in his chest whirrs as his heart skips along with the effort. His face aches, chapped from tears he’s apparently cried.

Jesus Christ.

 


	2. Bruce

* * *

 

 

War is …

War is rain. Cold. Mud that holds your feet and rocks that bite your knees when you fall to the ground. War is nights spent half searching for sleep, half straining to hear the warning cries of bombs wailing in misery as they fall through the air – the muffled roars of aircrafts above, searching for someone to kill.

War is living on death row while being told that there’s a possibility of being found innocent, and being encouraged to make friends with other inmates who have that same possibility of being pardoned. Encouraged to make friends who could possibly get their execution dates instead.

War is death, and struggling not succumb to death. Death delivered by bullets, by landmines, by bombs, by the crippling loneliness born from the fading memories of a life you know you’ve already lost.

Victory is just the looming, fragile promise of getting to go _home._

 

* * *

 

 

 

_Dear Bruce,_

_Before anything else, I just wanted to say that I’ve noticed that, if I put the three letters you’ve written to me so far side-by-side, they all sound suspiciously similar. Outside of your stories about Bucky (who I would love to meet, by the way. That needs to be arranged), which are entertaining and ever-changing, you’re essentially sending me the same stale sentences over and over again. All of which, as I’m sure you know, aren’t actually telling me anything. Other than the fact that “you’re fine” ~~please stop saying that~~_

_I’m not complaining about it. I just wanted to let you know that I’m on to your lazy writing practices._

_To answer your first question, yes, I’m doing well. I saw Doctor H earlier today, in fact, and (as I’ve said the last two times), my heart remains the same. I’m keeping up with my mandatory exercises and Pepper is making sure that I’m taking my medicine daily (on a very strict, early morning schedule. And she’s monitoring my diet. Did you send her a letter too or something?), and of course Doctor H is keeping an eye on the other things. Stop worrying about it so much. Your hair will go gray before you’re thirty, and then where will you be?_

_As for your second question, I will have you know that-_

 

 

 

In this moment, there’s a section of Bruce’s mind that is screaming for home louder than it has since they day he’d shipped out. Screaming for his apartment and his bed and Tony wrapped around him, talking non-stop in his ear and blushing at the small kisses Bruce can never keep himself from dropping on his neck.

It’s not going to happen.

His feet are buried under six inches of blood-soaked mud, and even as he shoots, he’s tripping over the twitching, slowly-dying bodies of men he hasn’t served with long enough to truly get to know. The whistling of bullets is drowned out by the panicked shouts of what’s quickly becoming less and less of his unit – the dead are silent, and so are the monsters who are beginning to cage them in.

“Run!” He hisses to one of the smaller guys (Peter, nineteen, confused as hell as to what he wants to do with his life after this war. Orphaned, an aunt and uncle at home who he wants to make proud), who stares back at him with wide, terrified eyes. Bruce shoves him as hard as he can. “You idiot, _run!”_

The kid makes it maybe a dozen feet before a bullet, large and unforgiving, slams into the side of his head and through the other side, leaving half of a skull and another body to add to the count – he doesn’t even make sound, and it takes all of Bruce’s useless training not to make one for him as he becomes just another ruined addition to the mud.

There are fewer shouts now. The sound of gunfire has died down enough that it sounds like a practice range – pick the target, take your time lining up, get a clear shot, you good, you sure, have you got it centered? Fire. Good. Good job. Pick the next one.

The smell – God, _the smell_. Bruce knows the scent of death, life robbed from the poor and broken souls of Harlem on their couches, on cathedral steps, in shadowed alleys so easily forgotten. This isn’t that scent – this reeks of blood, of violence, of despair and anguish and denial. Where the shouts have gone, there’s now a sea of moaning and sobs, shouts of “please! please!” that only grow louder; begging.

Bruce trips over another body, one that’s still moving, one that cries out when he does; he falls into the mud with the rest of them.

Looks up only to find the mouth of a rifle pointing directly in his face, and he can smell the bullet inside of it.

On reflex, Bruce snarls, reaching out with his left hand to snag the weapon even as Tony’s face, smile small and shy, expression exasperated, flashes through his mind.

_I’m sorry, sweetheart,_ he thinks as the enemy soldier jerks back in surprise – the rain makes the gun slip easily from Bruce’s hold, and without the brace of it, he loses his balance and hits the ground again. _Tony. I’m so damn sorry._

He waits for the bullet that will make his neck jerk back.

But when the gun fires, Bruce feels nothing.

Instead, the body of the man he’s fallen over is the one that jerks, a surprised whine that’s almost r _elieved_ the only noise the man makes as he slips from this hell and into death.

The ground shakes a little in thuds beneath him, and the enemy soldier is saying something low, tone almost amused.

There’s no warning before something quick and heavy smashes into the side of Bruce’s head. The eruption of pain is like the burst of a grenade inside of his head.

 

It goes black.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Seekingsquake for Science Bro's Week Secret Santa - hope you like it <3


End file.
